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Wednesday, 23 March 2016

Dusk Knights - List planning

Greetings all, I'm hoping to have some more reviews up later this week, but for now I realised that I've not set out any of the details of my proposed Dusk Knights Space Marine list since I originally posted up on the topic back in February. Needless to say my list has undergone some refinement since then, so here's the basic list in all its glory!

Conspicuous by its absence at the moment is the Thunderfire Cannon, though another is on my purchase list and the two together will be replacements for the Devastator Squad to pick up a bit of variety. I'd love to find another 25pts from somewhere to stick a Power Fist on the Devastator Sergeant, but the whole thing is pretty tight for points to be honest.

The tactics are pretty simple I hope, the Centurions pod down on turn 1, flanking the enemy to an extent to minimise return fire, whilst the Knight takes centre stage to be target priority 1. The Locator Beacon on the pod can then be used to strengthen my position once wave 2 of the pods start to arrive. I can be really flexible with the arriving pods thankfully, basically picking three of them to arrive on turn 1, which allows me to either bring in up to 6 objective secured units if I need to start grabbing early (7 if I want to forego bringing the centurions in on turn 1) or the devastator squad and sternguard if firepower is needed from the start.

The list boasts a quite frightening 8 Grav Cannons, with a Grav Gun and a couple of combi versions in there for good measure. The Power Fists on the Sergeants aren't really necessary but they are characterful, and can certainly give the units a threat they wouldn't otherwise have against vehicles in assault. Similarly, whilst it's not the most efficient option available, the Thunderstrike Gauntlet is effectively a Knight's Power Fist, so I had to include it, and the image of my Knight throwing tanks and monstrous creatures around the table is just too funny to discount.

I am perfectly aware that this list is in no way optimal, but it should be fun to use, and look incredible on the table, with the Knight painted in similar tones to the marines.

The fluff behind the Dusk Knights is that they like to fight up close and personal, a bit like Salamanders but less about the flames and fire based weapons. There will be variations on this list to come, including one with the aforementioned Thunderfire Cannons (yes, I know, not exactly 'close and personal', but marines aren't known for being tactically inflexible are they!) and another making much more of Kantor's benefits to Sternguard, which will be very infantry orientated. My biggest frustration so far with the list building process is that Kantor's particular benefits to Sternguard require them to be in the same detachment, so I can only really get them in either through taking a Gladius Strike Force and bringing Kantor as the Command element with a 1st Company Taskforce as an auxiliary, or by taking 3 basic squads in a CAD and foregoing any command benefits I might get from the taskforce formation.

It's clunky at best, and I'll certainly be looking at alternative ways to build such a list, so keep your eyes peeled for updates!